Amazing piece of architecture! And a great capture too
Matt

What ISO? It depends entirely on the circumstances

I used the K10D from ISO100 to around ISO800 - shooting RAW and using Silkypix Developer Studio to remove most of the noise. Occasionally I would use ISO1600.

The K20D I use comfortably up to ISO2000, and infrequently up to ISO3200.

You cannot escape slow shutter speeds at low ISO in low light! It's down to the laws of physics! So, you have to judge a compromise:
* Use slow shutter speed with SR, but possibly have subject movement blur?
* Up the ISO and more noise?
* Use a wider aperture and result in shallower depth of field?

The nice thing about the K10D & K20D is you can map the ISO onto one of the e-dials I usually use Av mode with aperture on the rear, and ISO on the front.

It takes a bit of getting used to - looking at three values in the viewfinder, but after a while it becomes second nature


If you shoot JPG, then have a look at products like NeatImage which do a great job of cleaning the noise out! If you shoot RAW then, depending on the converter you use, either master the noise reduction settings (e.g. in Silkypix), or run the output through noise reduction software like NeatImage (e.g. if you use Lightroom, Adobe Camera Raw etc - which have pretty primitive noise reduction abilities).

Hope that helps!
Matt

More info on this thread: https://www.pentaxuser.com/forum/topic/Tilt--Shift-10968

Thanks Tyr,

Wow! That XPS 16 RGB-LED display looks cool
Looks very tempting... (Wish it wasn't so big and heavy though!)

Slipped the replacement LCD into the M200 and it's now working... just calibrating the new LCD with ArgyllCMS to see if it's any better than the original (probably not!! :lol

Matt

Just one thing to re-emphasise when using RAW for HDR -
Process each RAW file with EXACTLY the same settings!

My approach is to get the white balance, colour, sharpening and noise reduction right for one shot and then copy and paste the settings onto the others. Leave the exposure compensation alone

Taking up Nathan's point - if you use a decent RAW converter (and the quality varies greatly) you can extract a huge amount of detail out of a RAW file. Much more than the camera ever could. Additionally, it's worth bearing in mind that JPG keeps something like 11% of the blue information - so if you have very blue subjects, or a serious white balance correction then RAW will always give you extra latitude.

In fact, to "play safe" you may want to try shooting RAW+JPG and do a side-by-side comparison If JPG suits your needs, then it is definitely quicker for workflow.

Matt

I would suggest:
* Remove the back up battery and the main batteries
* Leave for an hour or two
* Put in a new back up battery
* Put back in the main batteries
* Reset the camera to defaults in the menu

HTH!
Matt

If you have "D-range" enabled then you can only go to ISO200.
Press:
Fn, Right, and press Fn again so that "D-range 200%" is NOT showing.

Then you can get ISO100
(It's in the manual )
Matt

Hi Tyr,
Thanks for that - yes, it's disappointing that it's not better Having read a lot over the last week or so, it seems to be primarily down to the gamut of the backlighting. First generation CCFL had a pretty poort gamut; there are some newer CCFL tubes with improved phosphors and white LEDs can be slightly wider than a modern CCFL. The best gamut comes from a triad of R/G/B LEDs - which then needs cooling But a monitor like that'll set me back £1200

Yes, definitely an external monitor is the best approach for critical work. I've also read that the Dell 2209WA is a pretty excellent 22" LCD using an IPS panel.

But, if you saw the M200 LCD I think you'd appreciate all of your laptops It really is dire! It doesn't help that you have a clear panel a few mm in front of the LCD (which you press the pen on), and that panel is slightly mottled - and diffuses the light.

As it turned out, I should have a "culled" panel coming my way (around £50) which should at least get the machine usable again. Then, I think I'll shop around for something a bit better spec'd.... and the Toshiba U400 looks a good contender (and the business versions, e.g. U400-142 come with XP downgrade rights)

Thanks again for your input
Matt

Yes, I would say a solid tripod is an absolute must
There's an odd amount of blur in the shadows - is this where you attempted to tackle the noise in Photoshop? It certainly doesn't "sit right".

Often HDR images come out a little "flat" from the tone mapping, and they usually benefit from bringing in a single good exposure and blending that into the problematic areas with layer masks in Photoshop. For example, the sky in the first shot could probably have done with that.


I'm not 100% sure you've mastered single-image RAW processing... if you are currently struggling to get normal, non-HDR, images right then I would strongly suggest you get that skill first There are very, very few images that I've come across that genuinely require HDR techniques! Most situations (probably including the two you have here) can be resolved using 2 frames that are hand blended in Photoshop.

Still, either way - keep on going!
Matt

And on April 1st as well
Well done!
Matt